6/32 It would require a special volume to relate, expose, and develop the innumerable details of that immense extortion of signatures, which is called "the vote of the 20th of December." The vote of the 20th of December prostrated the honour, the initiative, the intelligence, and the moral life of the nation. France went to that vote as sheep go to the slaughter-house. _That the vote must be intelligent._ Here is an elementary proposition. Where there is no liberty of the press, there is no vote. The liberty of the press is the condition _sine qua non_, of universal suffrage. |